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Hate & Nonviolence



Yesterday I found a really interesting quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.:

Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.

A very powerful way of looking at things which seems to be built directly on teachings of Jesus, such as this one:

You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ “But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

It seems strange to me how MLK is so famous and respected, but how little you hear any of his actual words nowadays. I need to study more of him and maybe find some videos and audio recordings. Does anybody know of some good sources online?

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6 Reader Responses

  1. scott rassbach Says:
    May 18th, 2006 at 1:07 pm

    I just used this quote earlier today:

    Luke, Chapter 7:

    35 But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.

    36 Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.

    37 Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven:

    38 Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.

  2. Kylark Says:
    May 18th, 2006 at 1:56 pm

    The KJV sure is beautiful, even if it isn’t considered to be the most accurate translation. “That ye mete withal.”

    Tim, I’ve noticed too that we don’t hear much of King’s more radical sayings. As a figure he’s been co-opted and sanitized by the mainstream so as not to disrupt existing power.

    So it is with most great teachers.

  3. prnsqlr Says:
    May 18th, 2006 at 2:25 pm

    Being a young’un, I didn’t know until about 2-3 years ago that King was a VERY outspoken opponent of the Vietnam war.

    It was never mentioned once, in all the years I heard about King in school. I heard one of his anti-war speeches and was just completely blown away.

    http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/popular_requests/voice_of_king.htm

  4. Tim Boucher Says:
    May 18th, 2006 at 2:36 pm

    Wow, that’s incredible. The excerpt from the Mountaintop speech (his last) almost made me cry

    http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/pub...hy/multimedia/mountaintop_excerpt.htm

  5. DearKomMissiar Says:
    May 19th, 2006 at 8:48 am

    Most magnificent speech you are right. He was a prophet though, I can tell. Because in these words, from out of the past are the things which we need to deal with today:

    “If I lived in China or even Russia, or any totalitarian country, maybe I could understand some of these illegal injunctions. Maybe I could understand the denial of certain basic First Amendment privileges, because they haven’t committed themselves to that over there.”

  6. chiggles Says:
    May 19th, 2006 at 12:30 pm

    He was a prophet though, I can tell. Because in these words, from out of the past are the things which we need to deal with today:

    He was either a prophet, or he was one who noticed how events are recurring, cyclical, as opposed to linear and happening only at one single point in time.

    You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ “But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

    Does the same hold true for when one has good intentions but fails to act? that the good intentions outweigh the lack of good action?



SURROUND YOURSELF WITH STRENGTH.